After a wildly successful second season, Harley Quinn is back, and she's better than ever! We spoke with executive producers/showrunners Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern at San Diego Comic-Con to talk in a little more detail about Season 3 of Harley Quinn. The season premiered July 28, 2022, with three episodes jumping right back into the action where we left off.
Season 2 ended with Harley (Kaley Cuoco) and Ivy (Lake Bell) driving off into the sunset together, and we pick up right where they left off. Freshly in their honeymoon phase, Harley is very excited to jump into her relationship with Ivy, bringing her to a botanical island that Ivy made years ago called "Edin" to celebrate. This leads to Ivy's goal of turning Gotham City into an Eden, just, one without humans. The season introduces new, but familiar faces, from the comics, including Nightwing, voiced by What We Do in the Shadows' Harvey Guillén.
The series also stars Ron Funches, JB Smoove, Alan Tudyk, Matt Oberg, Christopher Meloni, Andy Daly, Diedrich Bader, James Adomian, Sanaa Lathan, and Briana Cuoco.
The synopsis for the season is:
The mayhem and madness continue in season three of this biting and uproarious adult animated comedy series. Wrapping up their “Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour,” Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) and Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) return to Gotham as the new power couple of DC villainy. Along with their ragtag crew – King Shark (Ron Funches), Clayface (Alan Tudyk), Frank the Plant (JB Smoove) - "Harlivy" strives to become the best version of themselves while also working towards Ivy’s long desired plan of transforming Gotham into an Eden paradise.
We spoke with Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern about the show, including about the now iconic couple of HarlIvy and how the duo don't have any plans to have them break up, Ivy and Harley's individual paths this season, how they managed to cast their amazing voice actors, and what goes into bringing in storylines from the comics. You can watch what Schumacher and Halpern had to say in the player above.
Here is what we discussed:
- How has it been writing Harley Quinn and watching her change and grow contrary to comic book tradition?
- Where does Harley Quinn land on the moral spectrum this season?
- How will Poison Ivy embrace her inner villain this season?
- How do the showrunners decide what to bring in from the live-action side of DC interpretations?
- What other characters will the show explore this season?
- How did they get live-action actors like Christopher Meloni and Alan Tudyk to join the project?
- How do they balance the comedy and bawdy humor with drama and heavy emotional moments?
- How did they cast Harvey Guillén as Nightwing?
- How did a DM from Patrick Schumacker bring James Gunn into the series?
- How did they make the decision to focus more on Batman and the Bat Family this season?
- What is the process for bringing in new storylines from the comics into the show?
- Do they ever plan to create original characters for the series?
- How much room does DC give the show to push the envelope?